Assignment #1: Open The Door To Ecuador

As of now, the country of Ecuador makes most of it's income by exporting natural resources, but they seek to become a digital and knowledge-based economy, which is what could change in the future. ICT, or  the Information Communication Technology has become an increasingly important source of growth for many Latin American countries.

If Ecuador increases their connection to the internet, it will help to further strengthen their economy and educate their population. Since 2008, the government has established over 473 infocentros, which are public spaces that provide computer training and internet access to rural communities. I think that infocentros could be helpful even for places like rural New Brunswick. We may be better off than some people in Ecuador, but a lot of households still can't afford internet access, and not all those who do know a lot about computers and would appreciate a place they could go to to acquire the training.

Yachay is the country's first planned city designed to become a hub for technological research and scientific infrastructure. Yachay University, located in the city, is not the Ecuador's first research technology institute. The University offers degrees in life sciences, information and communications technology, nanoscience,  renewable energy and petro chemistry and others.

I think Ecuador is doing the right thing in trying to become more independent in science and technology, and you can tell by their efforts that they are serious in what they are trying to do. I think it will work for Ecuador and I hope it does. I think New Brunswick is doing okay with the technology we have now. Most people do have internet and are capable of using it, and almost all schools have computer labs and internet access. There are many people who can't afford it though and are uneducated when it comes to computers and digital technology. If we had more infocentros, and followed some of the examples Ecuador is setting, I think it could change New Brunswick's economy for the better.
  

Journal Entry #6: Digital Business

The most surprising thing I found from doing this unit is just how many people use PayPal. I knew it was popular, but I never imagined it would have more than 100 million users. I did not find much confusing about this unit, but I did find some information on PayPal a little harder to find. once I found the Protection Policy and a blog post discussing it though, I was fine.

Both I and almost everyone I know has purchased something online, but so far everything has been fine with no crazy instances. my aunt uses PayPal and has for a while, and she loves it. It's an easy way to purchase things online, especially if you don't have a credit card. I have never sold anything online though. The only thing that could even resemble that would be the few ads my dad has had on Kijiji over the years, but the buyers always came to us with the money. They never payed online.

After looking reading some additional digital business tips, I think both tips number three and four were important. Some items seem to have a low costs that is too good to be true, but have a very large shipping fee that tricks the buyer into paying the actual desired price. Also when buying things from Kijiji, make sure to make the transaction is a public place, and to never send the money in the mail or online. These are both good to know because these things happen all the time, and are waiting to happen to you.

I think the biggest issue for young people when it comes to shopping and selling online, is that they don't think about what could happen to their money, items or information. All they care about is how quickly they can get the item they want or the money they need.

Assignment #2: PayPal

PayPal is an online service that allows you to easily use your money to purchase items online without disclosing any of your information or charging any fees, and this is why it is widely popular.

PayPal keeps you safe while shopping online, because it keeps your credit, debit, and bank account information safe. It does not disclose any of the information that is necessary to give for the use of their services, and it does not charge you any fees for using their website. They say that, "You never pay any fees when you buy with Paypal. Because it shouldn't cost you money to use your money."

PayPal does not charge the buyer for their services, but the seller, and that is how they make money. On some transactions, PayPal charges 30 cents, with a 1.9% to 2.9% surcharge fee. This does not bring in a lot of money though, and is only applicable on some of their transactions. blog.udemy.com wrote a blog post titles How Does PayPal Work?, where they discuss the topic of Paypal and positive and negative effects of it. They say that Paypal makes most of their money by earning interests against the money you have sitting in your account. With over one hundred million users, even if everyone had as little as five dollars or less, that is a big profit.

The PayPal Protection Policy allows you to be fully covered for your loss if things end up not going as planned. This  can be for items that you payed for but did not receive, and items that you did receive but were not as they were described. It does not cover items that you were just disappointed with.

If I started a business, I would allow accept PayPal transactions and their services into my company. It seems like an honest, safe to use company that is fair with it's services, and if my customers would feel safer paying online through that, I would allow it.

After looking at Google Wallet and comparing it to PayPal, I think I would be more comfortable using PayPal. It has more users and therefore must be liable, and the Google Wallet page says nothing about whether or not it charges you fees, which probably means it does. A company that doesn't would say that it does to ensure their possible costumers. PayPal charges no fees and is easier to use online.

Assignment #1: Shopping Carts?

Ever since online shopping has become popular, there has been this controversy between physical and digital stores.

Although some may disagree, I think that physical stores will not be going out of style any time soon. Reasons for this are that you can't try clothes on online, neither can you try on shoes or jewelry or glasses or any other pieces of apparel or accessories. People like seeing how they look and knowing they look okay before they leave a store with a purchase in hand. it's hard to do this online, even if you upload a picture of yourself, the result is never the same. Another reason is that I don't think many people would be comfortable buying food online. If we are talking about physical stores, we mean all physical stores, right? I would not be comfortable purchasing my groceries via the internet. The thought of possibly not knowing where the food is coming from or being lied to about the place is slightly unsettling. Also, for both of these reasons, there are shipping fees and extra taxes on some items that you buy online. Everything just seems a lot simpler when you can actually walk into a store and see the merchandise in person and not on a screen.

There are reasons people enjoy shopping online though, and those reasons are many. One could be how seemingly easy it is. You don't have to leave the house and you don't have to go to a bank, sometimes you don't even have to use a credit card depending on how you are choosing to send the money. It's effortless, and your purchases just arrive at your front door or in the mail, which is another reason why people may enjoy online shopping more. You never have to leave the house. You buy the merchandise online, and it arrives at your door in a few days. No clean clothes or gas required.

If I had to choose which one I would use all the time, it would probably be physical shopping and actual buildings that are the stores. I like being able to browse among shelves and racks and walk through isles, not scrolling on a screen. Call me old fashioned,but that appeals more to me. I only shop online when the store that I want to shop at is far away, or the object that I want to buy is not available anywhere else.

In the near but distant future, like 2050, I think it will still be similar to how things are today, with a balance of both online and physical stores. There is no way that physical stores will become a thing of the past and just cease to exist. There are people who still prefer physical stores over online ones, and because of that, I can't see how we could just put everything online and stop using them.

Canada Post has started sending less letters after the development of email, and now they are sending more packages and shipping products from online stores. I think this is a very smart business plan change, because a lot of people have been doing more of their shopping online and need a way to receive their packages. Being the one who sends them their products is a way to ensure business.

When something is wrong with your product or you are not happy with it, it is much easier to return it to a physical store. If online stores wanted to attract more customers, they could create some ways to make it easier to send items back. One way would be to send a receipt and a return address with the package, so the customer can easily send the item back if they are not happy with their purchase.

Journal Entry #5 (Digital Wellness)

The most surprising thing about this unit, to me anyway, was how far your car travels in one second, and how many seconds people look away from the road due to digital things like texting, or answering calls, or looking at a picture someone on the passenger side saw on Facebook. It's frightening, really. Even on rural roads when you are going the speed limit, (which usually people never do) your car goes about 14 meters in just one second. Answering a text takes more than just one second.

There wasn't a lot that was hard or confusing for me. The little bit of math that we had to do to convert kilometers into meters and hours into seconds was easy as soon as you knew what you were doing, so this unit came easily to me.

I think the biggest issue for young people when it comes to digital wellness is that we don't think.We have that mindset where we are invincible, and that these stories that we hear tell of would never to happen to us and we will stay that same way we are until we hit our thirties. Because of this, we pursue the world with this reckless abandon which can sometimes prove to us how fragile our bodies actually are. 

Assignment #2: The Pledge

• I pledge to shut off all devices and refrain from using the internet any time after 10 p.m to ensure I get enough sleep.
• I pledge to limit my cellphone time to two hours a day, to ensure I get my work done.
• I pledge to have a day once a week where I unplug, so I do not get caught up in the digital life and forget about the human life.
• I pledge to try to refrain from texting, for it is only a way to pass on information and not to have a conversation. If digital communication is necessary, I will call said person on my cellphone or home phone.
• I pledge to limit my social media time to a few hours a week, so I do not get caught up in the likability of my posts and online statuses. 

Assignment #1: One Mississippi

I was not here the day this assignment was to be completed and my house is definitely nowhere near 40 meters long, but I do know how much that is, and it's a lot to be not looking at the road for. In a way, it's like someone blindfolding you and then telling you to get in your car and  drive 30 to 40 meters. In another way, people are doing this, they just don't see it like that.

When you look away from the road, even for a second, your car doesn't stop moving. It is still going at the same speed as it was and will continue to until you hit the brake, and if you are not paying attention to, than people can die. You can die, the other passengers of the car can die, kids playing on the street, a mother pushing a stroller, an older man walking his dog, it doesn't matter. Anyone and everyone on the street or in a passing car as you look away from the road to answer a text or switch the station on the radio is in danger. On the highway, you travel over thirty meters per second, and that's when you are not speeding, as we all know most of you do. It is important to pay attention and not let things distract you. If it is something you feel can't wait until you get to where you going, it only takes a few minutes to pull over and do whatever it is that you have to do.

After watching this video by Volkswagen, I think it would be very effective to at least the people in the audience, because we were not told what was going to happen when the video started. They were not informed about what was going to happen when they sat down to watch a movie. It was unsuspected, and it surprised them, you could tell. It's effective because it is an interactive video, which means that it is shot in the first person and it looks as if you are the one in the drivers seat, not just some actor, and it will hopefully be remembered next time they are driving and a text alert goes off.

Sadly enough though, this video could also be ineffective because some people are just stubborn like that. They would see it as just an interesting or stupid car commercial, and never think of it again. Or they just think that it wouldn't happen to them. "Oh, but that wouldn't happen. You know that wouldn't happen to me."they say, but it does. Those who think they are invincible are sadly the ones who find out they're not.

A lot of newer cars already have a helpful invention, which is the Bluetooth that connects your cellphone to the vehicle, but that has it's own problems as well. I think the best thing is for cars and vehicles to have nothing, no Bluetooth, no internet, no cellphone service. That way, you have no choice but to pay attention to the road and your surroundings. It would also give you a chance to unplug and really connect with the other people in the car with you. If I could invent something to help stop distracted driving, it would be a jammer of some sort. Something that stops all airwaves and wireless access while the ignition is running. That way, you have to pay attention, and if you're not you shouldn't be driving.

I have been in a car with a distracted driver before, more than once actually, and I have said things and told the person to stop texting or stop talking on the phone. So yes, next time I am in a car with a distracted driver, I will speak up and say something again. Sometimes it doesn't work though, which is understandable. People are stubborn, and who's going to listen to a fifteen year old girl? I do offer to send the text or tell someone over the phone what the person driving wants to say, but sometimes that doesn't work either. Don't get me wrong though, there have been many times when they do put it away when I ask them to, or they do get me to type out and send a text, but it is only sometimes, and I wish it could be all the time.

Journal Entry #4: Netiquette

The most surprising thing I found when it comes to Netiquette is how similar it is to how you would expect people to act like in person. It's really just plain common sense, and for some reason I din't realize that until completing this unit. although some of the Terms and Safety agreements were surprising, I always knew there were concerning things written in the fine print.

I don't think many internet users bother reading the Terms of Service/Use agreements, a lot of the times I don't. It is just so many long paragraphs filled with minuscule writing, which looks menacing and time consuming. People tend to be intimidated when faced with such things, so just hit "I Agree", or "Accept" instead.

On a scale of one to ten, I think I would rate my behavior as a nine. I always try to be respectful out of habit, and although I don't read all the terms sometimes, I think my behavior is at least acceptable. The only reason I say nine is because I don't follow all the rules all the time. There have been times when I have illegally downloaded something (although it was probably unwise to admit that on a public blog), but I have never used it for any personal gain, and I usually end up deleting the media afterwards.

One thing that I know I will most likely take away form this unit is to know to be more observant, which I usually try to do anyway, but this unit helped to put that into perspective. It is important to try to pay attention to the terms of service agreements and when in an online discussion board. Just like in real life, people appreciate it when you are aware of what's going on and when you listen and pay attention to the conversation.

I think one of the biggest issues when it comes to netiquette among young people, is that they do not want to take the time to read and pay attention to things. We are in the generation and time where faster is better, and that can sometimes lead to consequences and misunderstandings due to things left unread.  

Online Discussion Boards (Assignment Three)

After reading the Rules of Netiquette for Online Discussion Boards, I noticed that a lot of them are similar to how we expect people to act when face to face. It's just manners, and manners are manners no matter the time, place or context.

I think that rules two, three, six and 15 are very important when it comes to online discussions, especially six. Number six talks about respectfully disagreeing when you don't agree with a statement. So many people break this rule, and it really makes the internet a nasty, rude place to be. Statement two talks about staying on topic, which I think is important because irrelevant pictures, links and comments can be annoying and look like spam. Rule three tells you to NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS, because it looks like you're screaming and not a lot of people appreciate that, and rule 15 is just about grammar. Proper spelling is a must to me, because it really makes me cringe when I see someone trying to sound intelligent with a misspelled, not punctuated paragraph.

I have commented on discussion boards before, and when I am disagreeing with someone, I always try to put it in the least negative way possible, even if the other people or person is being extremely rude about it. I have had both positive and negative experiences, because it depends on how the other users attitudes are, and especially the topic of the discussion.

Although I don't mind discussion boards, I don't think I would enjoy participating in an online course where I would be discussing issues with other students. I find it can get hectic, especially since you have no way of knowing who is about to speak. I also enjoy having in class discussions where everyone is in the same room. I find them educating and entertaining, and I think I would miss that too much to be able to enjoy an online one.

Do As I Say (Assignment Two)

The old saying "Do as I say, not as I do" can be strongly related to the internet and the way people use it. Adults tend to tell you not to do things, but they can be seen doing those same things and it can be conflicting, especially to youth. Some of these things can even be illegal. Here are a few reasons why I personally would not do as they do, and download content illegally or harass someone online:

• I don't want to go to jail.
• I know how hard people work on their content and how unfair it is for it to be used without credit and without the owner being paid.
• Harassing someone online is not helping anything, so it is pointless and cruel to do so.
• You could end up getting involved with something serious, even if you just thought it was fun or a joke
• I think you should treat people the way you want to be treated, and that goes for online too. 

Online Standards of Service Use: Assignment One

These are a few online companies that use the terms and service agreements, or get you to agree to other major conditions before use.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Snapchat
• Youtube

There are many more though, for  almost all social media and media sharing websites (like Youtube or Flikr) have these terms. Because of this, there are a lot of forums discussing a websites terms and service agreements, and I think some of them should be payed attention to.

The Google Privacy Policy states that they will be collecting your information to provide better services for all  of their users, not just you. When you create a Google Account, the collect information about the services you use and how they use them, selling that information to companies who will bombard you with relatable ads.

Youtube's Terms of Service states, like many other terms do, that Youtube is may modify their terms, and by agreeing to these terms, you are bound to the modifications. Even after you have already made your account and read and agreed to their terms, they can change these terms and you will still be bound to them.

The Microsoft Services Agreement lists the rules they wish you to follow and the consequences for not following them, but then they state that they cannot monitor all of the services and therefore make no attempt to. I guess I can understand this, because there are a lot of users to monitor, but when they say that they do not attempt to, it makes me feels as if people can easily break the rules and not get caught, which can endanger you as a user.

Twitter's Terms of Service state that by agreeing to these terms, you consent to the use and collection of your information, including transfer of your information to other countries. They take your information and sell it to third parties who store it in different parts of the world.

SafetyDawg's Terms and Conditions say that some of their content may contain viruses and corrupt data, but they are not responsible for any computer viruses you may obtain from downloading data from or through their site. This is definitely something to be worried about, especially since they know that there are viruses on their site, but they are not trying to contain them. Viruses can lead to leaks of personal information and can hurt your computer.

Journal Entry #3: Digital Rights and Responsibilities

The most surprising thing I found when it comes to digital rights and responsibilities was how many of them there were. It seemed that every website I went to, they had their own lists and paragraphs of what they thought was considered an internet user's duty.

 I don't think many people act responsibly online. Have you forgotten about the privacy settings almost all social media sites offer? Over sharing is a problem too that not just youth partake in. There are many adults who feel the need tell the world about everything they are doing, have done and are about to do. People post selfies and write posts about their personal life, and then wonder how everyone knows why and when they are upset. They put almost all of themselves out there for the world to see, which to me is not using the internet responsibly.

The one commandment that I find most important out of the ones I have created is the eighth one. "Thou shall respect one's right to privacy". I find this important because privacy is important. There is nothing worst than having private and personal information leaked because you weren't careful enough, or someone felt the need to exploit what wasn't theirs to know in the first place. People have the right to privacy in their lives, and some people need to realize that it is okay if they don't know something about someone, that if people wanted you to know something, they would tell you.

I think the biggest issue around digital rights and responsibilities among young people is that they don't realize what their responsibilities are, and that there are people out there who will violate their rights, even if it doesn't seem like it. 

Assignment: Digital Rights and Responsibilities

The Ten Commandments of the Internet according to me, apparently.

Journal Entry #2 (Digital Communication)

Digital communication is exhausting, and that's what I find most surprising about it. You would think that talking to someone digitally would be the same as talking to someone in person, but it's not, and it affects a lot of things differently when you choose to communicate digitally over verbally.

After watching a video on email etiquette, I learned that it is considered rude to not respond to an email after 24 hours. If people wanted to wait a week for your reply, they would have used snail mail. Also that you shouldn't type in all caps because people will read it as if you are yelling. Signing your email is important too, so the receiver knows who is sending the message.

BCC, or Blind Carbon Copy, is when all of the addresses of the people who are receiving an email are not known to everyone who is receiving it. If I was sending the same email to five of my friends, none of them would be able to get an email address other than mine or their own. It would be a good idea to use a BCC when sending a business email to many people from your work, or sending an email to everyone in your class.

I think one of the most important things for young people to consider while using digital communication, is to think about how much your non-digital relationships might suffer. Digital communication can be fun and easy, but you might not realize how much of your time is being used towards that. It's okay to unplug for a little while. 

Acronyms attack (Assignment Two)

Acronyms, in my opinion, are stupid and unnecessary. They are just for lazy people who don't want to spell out words and therefore do not appreciate good grammar. I appreciate good grammar and can find it annoyingly difficult to talk to people when all they want to do is the use the first letter of words to create a bunch of seemingly random letter that only they understand. For this reason, I find it hard to think of new acronyms when a lot of them are already there. HJNTIY could be one, I guess. Standing for He's Just Not That Into You (totally not a stolen movie title.) TJK could mean Totally Just Kidding, and YRG8 could mean You're Great, which is definitely something everyone wants to hear that away.

There are many places where you should never use acronyms. When writing an email, especially a formal or professional one. When writing a school or business essay, acronyms just make you look juvenile and make it appear as if you can't spell. I doubt you would be picked for the job if you had acronyms on your resume, and I know I would not be accepting you into my college if that was the way you were going to spell.

Communication Compass (Assignment One)

If there was anything in this world that is gray, it would be the internet. The internet has never been a good or a bad thing. It has always been and forever will be the way that it is used that will cause people to believe that it is either black or white. For that reason, it is obvious that there would be both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to something like digital communication.

Digital communication is the electronic exchanging of any information. This can be anything from texting and emails to Facetime.

Of course, although some people choose to see nothing but bad, there are good things. Digital communication allows us to easily communicate with people who are far away from us, whether that be a province or a continent, it doesn't matter because distance does not matter. It allows us to easily transition files to one another, which helps us decrease our carbon footprint because it cuts down on our paper usage. We can have meetings with numerous people attending them, with none of them in the same room, and we can  stay in touch with people that we never would have been able to, because it is so easy to do.

Although all of these things are convenient and helpful, there are many disadvantages as well. I know from experience that this can cause people to be awkward when talking to people face to face. Digital communication can become an addiction, and it can be hard to unplug. People forget that there are other things they could be doing, like going for a hike instead of looking up pictures of the trails. We become a society that relies on technology, and that can be just as toxic as a society that relies on a drug.

There have been many advancements in the technological world, and because of that we have a lot of new technologies and websites that have become wildly popular. Facebook has become nothing but more popular ever since it was created in 2004. Twitter, too, was instantaneously a hit when it was out for the public. Snapchat has just been created in the last few years, and it is a very popular, excessively used app that doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. All of these three websites are a form of social media, and that's the key to popularity when it comes to website ideas and design. People love to connect to other people, they thrive for it. The idea of being able to send texts and photos to people so easily has almost moved beyond the want, and is now the need. Which is a problem in itself, but people choose to ignore that and instead partake in it.

With these advancements though, many forms of digital communication are becoming lost and forgotten, and will soon be irrelevant. Emails now are mainly used for things that require them, like signing up for a social media website. People mainly contact each other via text or Facebook. Even talking on the house phone or landline is becoming widely unpopular. People have unhooked them and have cancelled their plans. Does anyone even use a phone book anymore? Phone numbers can be so easily found online and saved as a contact on your cellphone, that I'm not surprised many children today have never heard of them. Plain old texting, too, has started to lose it's cool. With the development of Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and other social and instant messaging apps, people don't even need cellphone numbers to communicate. As long as you have an internet connection, you can talk to anyone in the world, and anyone in the world can talk to you.

It's bad enough that many of us are constantly on our phones and looking to talk to people that are not with us in person, but there are many situations that we should not be communicating digitally, but we are.

I find one of the worst possible things you could do is talk to someone via text when having an intense or serious conversation. I have done this more times than I would like to admit, and I hate it. I hate participating in it, I hate trying to decipher the context of the other person's text, and I hate worrying about whether or not said person took my words the wrong way. It is extremely stressful, and I usually feel terrible both during the conversation and for a  long time after it. I think this is definitely a time when it is worth it to pick up the phone (unless it's long distance which, again from experience, sucks).

Other scenarios where it is not the best idea to be communicating digitally could be at a funeral, because I would find that rude and disrespectful, especially for those around you who are in mourning. Speaking of that, saying that you are sorry for someone's loss via digital communication does not seem like a good thing to do either. People appreciate it more when you say things in person, the reason or topic does not matter. So when you are listening to someone talk or participating in a class discussion or a conversation with a friend, it does not look like you are paying attention when you are digitally communicating with someone else. Most cases, you aren't. So when talking to someone in person or listening to a speaker, it would not be wise to be digitally communicating also.

ugot.org discusses the topic of the many dangers of digital communication. Although they were all obvious and should be well known already, there were two that stood out to me. Those were cyberbullying and that the identity of the sender can be disguised or difficult to trace. These can actually be in relation to each other. It is very common for a cyberbully to be someone that you know, but they are using the screen to hide their face and their words to hide their voice. When using the internet and other forms of digital communication, you are willingly stepping into a shadowed room where all those who are in there have their faces obscured. Then you walk around and give them information about yourself, which they can choose what to do with. They can either ignore it, or use that information against you. In a cyberbullies case, they use that information and other bits and pieces of fabricated thoughts and they intentionally try to be cruel to you while being in the safety of that shadowed room. That's why any form of digital communication is dangerous, because in most cases, those in the room with you are mostly strangers too. Some think that a stranger is just a friend that you haven't met yet, and in a way that can be true, but not all strangers are friendly. Some will try to hurt you, and that's why you have to be cautious in these situations.

Although there is no way to get kids and people to be less internet obsessed, I think people will eventually find that healthy balance of real life and digital life. That eventually, people will realize the reason they don't feel completely themselves is because they are wasting too much of their energy on what they shouldn't be. That the connections they should be focused on are the real, human ones, not the wireless.

People do tend to worry about what should happen to the internet activity and digital accounts of those who have passed away. Some people decide to keep the accounts going, while others try to delete them and erase all proof pf digital existence, which I can understand. It can be hard to see people still trying to interact with those who are no longer here.

I think we should just leave them there. The internet doesn't seem to be at full capacity yet, so I see no reason to take them down. It lets people look back at what they did, and read about them and the things they said. It's their own personal time capsule in a way, and I like that idea very much.

Journal #1: Digital Security

After completing the Digital Security assignment (found below), I was not at all surprised with the results. Almost everyone I know has, at some point, used a weak and well known password, which is a terrible thing to do for it threatens your digital security.

I found this unit easy and I understood it well. There was nothing I found confusing or difficult, and for that I am grateful, because we all know how much it can suck when we need to do projects that are.

I like to think that my passwords are secure. Sure, I may use the same one for almost everything I do, but I don't think it would be easily guessed. For that reason, I'm choosing not to worry. I think the most important thing to consider when creating passwords is complexity. The more intricate the password, the harder it will be to guess, which will ensure your digital security. 

Digital Security (Assignment One)

The two worst passwords listed on the bbtnb.ca website are "123456", and "password", and I agree that they are easy to guess. When you don't know the person and you are trying to hack into their computer or other devices, these are always the first ones people tend to try. For that reason, I have never used any of them. I tend to stick to random, not significant words, capitalizing one or two of the letters and adding some numbers on the end. This way, I know that unless I tell people what it is, or someone is an incredibly skillful hacker, I won't easily have my information leaked.

I think seniors would be more likely to use these passwords, and although this is a stereotype, typically they aren't as well informed about the internet and the devices that can connect to it. So when something requires a password, they put something that would be easy to remember, such as 123456, not thinking about the consequences that could arise from it. I know a lot of adults though who warn me about this, and tell me to make sure I have a strong password, so to say that most adults would use these type of passwords would be a lie.

There are a lot of terrible passwords out there, more than just the two that bbtnb.ca listed. Other passwords that I would not recommend using would be your name or the name of anyone in your family, your address, your birthday, and other easily known pieces of information that is related to you.

Some people wonder how long a password should be to be considered strong, and I think most websites will not accept anything less than eight characters. I agree that anything less than that would not be the best choice. People usually make remarks and say the odd comment when they see someone typing in a password that is seemingly a mile long, but I would bet you anything in the world that no one else is reading their emails. Strong passwords are important, and if you are using a password that is similar or the same as one of the ones I talked about here, I strongly suggest you change it! It could save your life! (Not really, unless you are stupid and like to meet up with creepy strangers).

Timey-Wimey Stuff

This is what Toni and I did for our final photo editing assignment.

I am a geek. Get over it.

Monster Mash

As you can see, I've created a monster. Literally.

For this assignment, we had to find a piece of thrift store art and paint a monster into the scene. As you can see, I have painted this creature with weird pussy eyes, and I honestly have no idea where it came from. It started with one eye, and then it just sort of came from there. Nothing inspired me, I just started doodling and then the doodle came to life!

The easiest part of this assignment was finding the picture, and the hardest part was deciding what to draw. I found this assignment easy though, and I'm really glad with how it turned out!

Toon Town Photo Bombing

What happens when cartoon characters spring to life? Or we decide that we want to lead a life in a pixelated world? What is it that happens when students are asked these questions, or they are just told to do an assignment and how to do it? Why am I asking so many possibly rhetorical questions?

Okay, I'm done now.

This assignment is called Toon Town Photo Bombing, because it is a chance for students (like me) to get creative, and design a scene where both real life and the silly fantasy of cartoons come together. I found it pretty cool, although I am so unoriginal that I sat for a day at my desk, staring at the blinking line in the search bar of Google, not sure what exactly to do and thinking I was a failure at life. Or, at least BBT class. Eventually, this is what I came up with.

As you can see, this is Dumbo with his new family of real life elephants (click words for links of pictures I used). It's not very creative, I know, but come on, Dumbo is cute, elephants are sweet, I see nothing that could go wrong with this! 

I chose this scene because I honestly couldn't think of anything else, and elephants are my favorite animal, which I know I have mentioned at least once, if not twice, before. So, why not? I'm happy with how the final product turned out and that's all that matters. 

The assignment mentions that this kind of work can be related to film and documentaries, which is definitely true. I have thought about a career in film actually. After high school, I like the idea of moving to Toronto to take up Screenwriting at the Toronto Film School (TFS). I would like to do something like that because I love to write, and I loved watching old movies with my mom when I was younger, like Alfred Hitchcock and Richard Brooks and Steven Speilberg, and you get to learn about them, and why they chose to direct and write the things that they did, and I like that and want to be a part of that. Screenwriting is a way to put my love of writing and film together, and I can't think of anything else that would be able to satisfy my life in the way that I want it to right now. I know that is subject to change, but at the present moment, I like the thought of it very much.